From the internet
Olivia Surprises Grandad! (Video, Youtube) A video that I love to watch whenever I feel like a smile. It is so joyful and wholesome, bringing much-needed positivity to 2018.
My Dad's friendship with Charles Barkley (Article/radio segment, NPR). A story of an unlikely friendship between a famous basketball player and the author's father. And it's simply beautiful.
This tweet:
The Coast 25 for 25 Podcast (Podcast, Soundcloud) I learned so much about this city I call home, as hosts Jacob Boon and Tara Thorne entertainingly go through Halifax year-by-year. I gained a new appreciation for this city, and a definite new appreciation for beloved CTV news anchor Steve Murphy. I've never been a fan of podcasts that have a lot of host banter, but I could listen to Jacob and Tara talk about Steve Murphy, transit etiquette, the Fountains' parties or art pranksterism for hours.
Tessa and Scott (Video, Youtube) I can't believe that was 2018 (this year has been so long), but yes, this was the year that Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir captured our hearts as they skated to gold in Pyeongchang through this romantic ice dance to Moulin Rouge. I am still convinced they are totally in love and meant for each other. This was a year where we all needed to believe in love a little bit more... honestly it would be a NATIONAL SERVICE for them to make it official, dating-wise.
The Man with No Language (Article, Conversations.org) My sister who is studying linguistics sent me this and I think about it a lot. Imagine not even... knowing that language is a thing??
The Bughouse Square podcast episode with Shel Silverstein. (Podcast episode) I listen to a lot of podcasts, but this particular episode has stuck with me. Whether it's the amazing storytelling of Shel Silverstein or the insights about how children's literature affects us as we grow... I keep thinking about it.
Meet the UW Professor Who Just Killed the Death Penalty (Article, Seattle Times). Just love this story about how rigourous, well-thought-out social science research ended up having an impact on public policy.
This tweet:
William Prince on Unreserved (Radio concert, CBC). William Prince played at StanFest in 2017 and it made the feeling of being damp to my very bones in the unrelenting Canso rain bearable. So it's nice to have a recording that captures the feeling of being in the same room as that amazing voice.
Cancer patient returns home to surprise parade (Article/video, DailyMail). Just another feel-good video. Cancer sucks, community rocks.
Queer Eye Season 2 Episode 1. (TV episode, Netflix). The premise of the show Queer Eye is that five gay dudes, each with their own area of expertise, spend a week making over every aspect of a straight dude's life in order to help him reach his goals. But this episode becomes less like a makeover and more like a story of healing among a gay son, his devotely Christian mother, and their church community. I think Jesus has a habit of showing up in the places we religious fools least expect, and this episode shows Jesus' love and grace so deeply.
Erna Hackett at the NAIITS conference (Video of lecture, facebook). A disarming and convicting talk about the hegemonic whiteness of our theology.
I was Jordan Peterson's strongest supporter. Now I think he's dangerous (Article, The Star). I've never been much interested in Jordan Peterson so this article struck me not because it was anti-him, but because of the ways it reminds us to be cautious of unequivocally following any one person with good rhetoric.
The 99% Invisible episode about the Gander Airport. (Podcast episode) From this I got one of my best fun anecdotes of the year, which is that Fidel Castro once went sledding in Gander, NL. And there is photo evidence.
Patrick Fung at Jesus to the Nations. I unfortunately can't find any sort of recording of this, but OMF Director Patrick Fung's talk (there might have been more than one, I can't remember) at Halifax's Jesus to the Nations conference has stuck with me. It gave me a vision of a good kind of life-- a life of pouring oneself out so that Jesus may be known.
This photo of a kid arriving early for a Black Panther screening (Craig Walker photo)
This Toronto Life story about the McCain family. (Article, Toronto Life) The article is from 2013 but this was the year I developed a slightly unhealthy obsession with that family. And this article just solidified that obsession. It's always fun to get a glimpse into how the 1% lives... especially when they happen to be from a small town in New Brunswick.
I brought the party to my dying father's hospital room. (Article/radio doc, CBC). I am sharing a lot from CBC, and honestly a lot of that is because the CD player in my car is broken and the radio dial is normally turned to CBC Radio 1. The day this came on, though, I was doing some chores around the house and it was a rare occasion of listening to the radio outside of the car. This one is hard to listen to without crying. It's beautiful and human and I love it.
Stanley Hauerwas. Modern American Puddleglum (Article, Mere Orthodoxy) Featuring the quote that resonated the most with where my faith was this year: "Jesus is Lord, and everything else is bullshit." Coming from a theologian, that's so liberating. Being a Christian does not mean subscribing to a certain orthodoxy or creed or having everything figured out about everything. It means staking your life on Jesus-- and sometimes a life where Jesus is Lord means letting go of the religious claptrap you thought was holding you close to God.
Davita's amazing blog post (Blog post). My friend wrote a blog post about feminism and Charlotte Smith and more and it's very good. And she even managed to make a jab at 2018's awful Bachelor, Arie, so that just confirms the brilliance of the piece.
Hell... and How to Get There (Book chapter). Brian Zahnd wrote about hell, and it's helped me widen my thinking. Here at the beginning of 2019, I have to admit that I really am not sure what happens to anyone after we die. Instead, I trust God to be good.
Why It's Hard to Escape Amazon's Long Reach (Article, Wired). This one's from the end of the year but I was shocked at the many things that Jeff Bezos has his hand in. And coming from an economic sociology perspective, I am left wondering what kind of unanticipated impacts the dominance of Amazon has (and will have) on our lives. And I am also thinking about the ways our economic system allowed this to happen-- should it have? Is there a better way, and if so, what?
Books
I used to always finish any book I started reading, even if it felt like a marathon to do. This year I decided that life is too short to read books you don't like, or to read books just because they are classics or whatever. So this year, I picked up but didn't finish Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon; Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, Studs Terkel's Working, and probably a lot more books. It's not that I didn't like them, and in fact I hope to pick them up again someday. But they got pushed aside in the shuffle of grad student life.
But as for books I did read, these are the ones that have stuck with me this year
Academic:
Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side by Eve Ewing
From Traps to Draggers: Domestic commodity production in Northwest Newfoundland, 1850-1952 by Peter Sinclair
Why Rural Schools Matter by Mara Tieken
People, Resources and Power: Critical Perspectives on Underdevelopment and Primary Industries in the Atlantic Region edited by Gary Burrill and Ian McKay
Faith:
The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning
Everybody Always by Bob Goff
The Violence of Love by Oscar Romero
Nonfiction:
Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler
Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga
All We Leave Behind by Carol Off
Fiction:
The Boat People by Sharon Bala
Movies
Without meaning to, I went to the cinema more times in 2018 than any other year. The movies that really stuck with me, though, were these ones.
A Star is Born
Free Solo
The Dawn Wall
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Black Panther
Many Beautiful Things (came out 2017)
Music
Some artists I got really into this year. It often takes just a single song for me to be hooked on an artist-- here I am going to link to the song that caught my attention. Most of these songs didn't come out in 2018, but I listened to them in 2018.
Rex Orange County
Kweku Collins
Donovan Woods
Rainbow Kitten Surprise
Aquakulture
In 2018, some favourite artists also released new music, like Anderson .Paak, Chance the Rapper, Noname, and Twenty One Pilots.
The Christian songs that have stuck with me this year are Closer to Your Heart and Slow Kingdom Coming.
WOW. This was extensive. Hope it's at least a little interesting to you. Can't wait to see what sticks in 2019.
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